The present invention relates to an apparatus for splicing the tow ends of man-made fiber tows. The apparatus includes one or more pairs of nozzles or jets that are disposed on a pair of jet carriers in such a way that the jet pairs are spaced from and directed toward one another. Compressed air is supplied to the jets, whereby splicing of the two tow ends, which are disposed on top of one another in a flat or sheet-like manner between the pair of jet carriers, is effected via aerodynamic turbulence.
It is frequently an objective when manufacturing man-made fibers to join together the ends of fiber tows. For example, it may be necessary to successively further process the contents of several canisters that are each filled with fiber tows. The respective beginnings and ends from the individual canisters are then expediently joined together so that after the processing of the content of one canister, the beginning of the contents of the next canister can be conveyed to the further processing stage without additional effort.
It is known to join tow ends by knotting or snarling them together. However, since the knots cannot be allowed to pass certain further processing stages such as, for example, fiber pile cutting machines, the process must always be interrupted if a knot enters the further processing stage. The knot is then cut out, the beginning of the subsequent tow is introduced into the further processing stage, and the process is restarted.
This manner of joining tow ends is obviously cumbersome. For this reason, German Offenlegungsschrift 37 13 286 proposed a splicing apparatus via which the tow ends were to be spliced together by aerodynamic turbulence. For this purpose, this known splicing apparatus is provided with pairs of jets that are disposed on a pair of jet carriers in such a way that the jets are spaced from and directed toward one another. The jets are supplied with compressed air so that the fibers of the tow ends, which are disposed on top of one another in a sheet-like manner and are introduced between the pairs of jets, are aerodynamically joined together by turbulence, so that via this braiding or interweaving, a connection is established between the ends of the man-made fiber tows.
Unfortunately, with this heretofore known splicing apparatus it is possible to join together only such tow ends that, in the flat state, do not exceed a certain width. As soon as the width of the tow ends exceeds a certain size, these tow ends must be moved back and forth by an operator transverse to the longitudinal orientation of the tow ends so that a splicing operation can be effected over the entire width of the tow ends. In so doing, the quality of the splice connection cannot be reproduced, and depends primarily upon the manual aptitude of the operator. In addition, this back and forth movement of the tow ends that are to be spliced together is personnel intensive. Furthermore, a drawback of the known splicing apparatus is that after the tow ends have been spliced, projecting fiber ends remain that may have to be cut off by hand by the operator using scissors.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to improve the heretofore known apparatus for splicing the ends of man-made fiber tows in such a way that a simpler operation is possible, where above all the splicing and cutting procedures should be capable of being carried out automatically.